Welcome back to another week of Inari Konkon. The show only has three episode so far, but it’s really growing on me.

Onii-chan Overload

Touka caught himself a Goddess.

This episode essentially deals with brothers; Inari’s onii-chan and even Uka-sama’s siscon brother. So I suppose we could have figured it from Inari’s flashbacks, but she actually couldn’t see spirits and Gods until the events of the premiere. The big question is, what happened to change this? Did she become able to perceive Uka-sama and her familiars simply because she beseeched the Gods in that episode? Or perhaps Gods have the ability to choose to show themselves to a human, and Uka-sama did so to comfort Inari? Whatever the case, something peculiar must have happened that day to change Inari. On the other hand, her brother is revealed to have always been able to see Uka-sama. Which, I guess explains why he’s hostile to the Goddess initially. I think most people would be creeped out by a ghostly, floating/flying figure apparently haunting their sister. But now that he knows Uka-sama’s true identity, he’ll likely start getting along better with her as the episode suggests.

Inari’s powers run out of control.

Speaking of Touka and Uka-sama, this episode took the show in a direction I didn’t expect. I figured Inari Konkon would be purely about the titular Inari’s transformation and relationship misadventures. But clearly there’s a deeper subplot surrounding the present circumstances. Also, the Gods and Touka have come to have a much more important role than I imagined. For one, I believe we will see much more of Touka looking out for both his sister and Uka-sama as the two go through what we now know to be a rather serious situation. Inari having to acclimate to her new powers and Uka-sama suffering adverse effects from giving away said divine power are just the tip of the iceberg, as the show pulls out the big drama guns with Inari potentially losing her ability to see and interact with Uka-sama if and when she returns the Goddess’s powers. Which we all know is going to happen eventually because drama. The only question is if they’ll be able to figure out a happy ending before it comes to that.

I was a bit afraid that Touka would turn out to be a generic siscon since that subject is so trite now, but thankfully his concern for his sister is very normal and genuine (ignoring his chuuni tendancies). What I am very interested in seeing though, is for some sort of relationship to spring up between him and Uka-sama. Despite their rough start, the two definitely shared some adorable moments throughout the episode. And a caring commoner human might just be the perfect match for Uka-sama after being chased by all those suitors in the Celestial Plains. That is, if she can get over the fantasy men of the 2D world… But anyway, I forsee her working with Touka much more in the future to watch out for Inari until the girl’s new powers stabilize. Oh, and there’s also something about Uka-sama’s own brother, but he’s just that generic siscon so yeah.

Really really good show. I hope they don’t bog down in the mutually exclusive set of goals. That Inari may lose the ability to see the gods smells of a red herring, and may not be the important thing in the big picture.

My initial worry was that it would be a cloud hanging over the show for the entire time. After thinking about it more, it’s probably more of a way out for the end of the show. I mean, how do you end a story like this? With Inari growing up and moving on and giving Uka-sama’s divine power back in a tearful but still happy farewell. So in the class of ‘Red Herring’ for this TV series, but maybe relevant in future series or the manga.

Ootoshi was pretty unsufferable, and that sequence chasing him around got tired fast. In contrast, the scenes with Uka-sama and Touka got better as they went along, as Touka lost some of his hostility.

I find I really like the concept of Shinto gods and mostly their limits. The idea of them as, really, just a separate group of people who have greater abilities than ‘normal’ humans, with a continuum between the two groups, appeals to me far more than the omnipotence of most western religions (which don’t appeal to me at all, to be honest).

I can understand why the brother is so hostile with Uka. He’s just being overprotective since Uka is not someone his family would know, and she sits on strange places, making her look like a suspicious person. It’s like having a suspicious random stranger talking to your younger sibling. I guess I can understand how he feels because my sister has a bit of sister-complex towards me, and she said all the things above to me.

I’m a big fan of the manga and I’m liking the pacing of the anime so far. I really like how they’re doing Touka and Uka’s relationship (at least in these first few eps). Toshi I mostly just filter out until he does something plot-relevant (which is to say, not a lot of the time).